


Wake, Soldier

by mmwhatchasayy



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky's POV, Canon Compliant, I'm really bad at tags sorry, M/M, Oblivious Steve, Sort of canon?, Unrequited Love, bucky's wake words, could be canon i guess, idk i don't really mention steves side of the story, imagine what u want, implied stucky - Freeform, or maybe just oblivious steve, so i guess this could count as an unrequited love fic?, so read at your own risk, they don't get together in the fic but bucky wants them to, vaguely mentions the soldier abusing people, wake words, winter soldier - Freeform, winter soldier wake words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 14:22:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11991645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmwhatchasayy/pseuds/mmwhatchasayy
Summary: Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight Car.(There's a story behind every word. This is that story.)





	Wake, Soldier

_Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight Car._

_Soldier?_

 

*****

 

 _Longing_.

It's easy to figure out what part of Bucky's life they've ripped this word from.

The very first time they'd spat the word at him, rough and loud and angry, he hadn't known what it had meant. 

But still, deep down, he knew. 

He'd seen him standing there, shining brighter than any sun, just like he always did. 

Steve, in a place he absolutely did not belong.

This place was sharp tools and harsh words and stinging smells, horrible, horrible, horrible.

But Steve - God, _Steve_ \- he was bright blue eyes and loud laughs and a stubborn jaw and the light scratching of graphite on old paper. He needed to stay where he was, far, far away from this place.

Even his memory couldn't be here, for this place could taint those colorful memories. And that was exactly what Bucky didn't want.

And still, when they say the word, when they spit it at him, he cannot help but picture Steve.

 _желание_.

Unlike the other words, this one doesn't come from a specific event. This word is his whole life, his whole being. This word is purely Bucky in the way that _oblivious_ is Steve.

Bucky loves him (it's easy to admit that now, there are no secrets here), and he has always loved him. Steve is his, he is Steve's.

But Bucky Barnes is no idiot. He knows that even if Steve's it for him . . . well, he isn't exactly it for Steve.

Steve deserves the world, after all. And it's fairly obvious that Bucky can't give that to him. 

And so he sets up double dates. He tells every dame he meets about the sweet little guy with strong hands. And when Steve meets Peggy - Bucky knows he's found her. His forever girl.

Sure, he's jealous, of course he is. But above all that, he's happy for Steve. (He really is.)

Even if he spends the nights alone in his bunk, listening to the two of them chat and laugh by the crackling fire, just as he used to do. Or, even worse, he listens intently as Steve excitedly tells Bucky all about his dynamite girl, all red lips and strong leadership and quick wit.

He listens, and he pastes on a smile, pats him on the back, and gives him little tips on wooing her.

And above all else, Bucky longs.

 

*****

 _Rusted_.

Unlike most of the others, this is not a word from Bucky's past. It holds no special meaning, is linked to no memory or daydream.

This word is the worst one, the cruelest and the harshest.

It is not his past or his present, but his future. All the potential he'd once held, a boy with his whole life in front of him - it is all turned to one word, now. It is all he will ever become, all he could wish to be.

He is a man made of metal, barely a man at all.

Someday, when he is past use, he will sit discarded as all weapons do.

Useless and frozen and as good as dead - but they will not be so kind as to let him die, no one has ever been so kind to this man, nothing more than a hunk of wasted metal.

He will sit, and he will rust.

 

*****

 

 _Seventeen_.

It was three weeks before Bucky's seventeenth birthday that Steve told him his Ma had been diagnosed with tuberculosis.

For a long moment, he could do nothing but squeeze his eyes closed and press a clenched fist to his mouth, lips sealed up tight. Tuberculosis was as good as a death sentence, especially to someone with as little money as Sarah Rogers.

"When?" He finally managed to croak out. Sure, the woman wasn't his biological mother by any sorts - Sarah had been a short, skinny little thing just like her boy, while Winifred Barnes stood tall at 5'10" with curly hair dark as night, compared to the other woman's strawlike locks - but with all the time Bucky spent at the Rogers' place, she might as well have been.

Sarah understood that a mother like Winifred along with an older sister and five little ones running underfoot could sometimes be a bit too much for Bucky to handle, and she always welcomed him into her home with open arms.

She was a good, good woman, and Bucky loved her just as much as Steve did.

Which was probably the explanation for how upset he grew when Steve admitted with a shaky voice, "Two months ago."

Bucky knew as well as anyone that tuberculosis could wipe you off the face of the earth in just a few months, and the thought that his time with the woman was now so limited made him incredibly angry. 

He turned to Steve with a fire in his eyes reserved only for the times he was angriest. "And you kept this from me, why?"

The other boy's eyes, in comparison, were growing wetter by the second. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his words small as his frame. "She didn't want me to tell you, didn't want the both of us doting on her like she did for us." He paused to wipe roughly at his eyes with his sleeve. "She - she said she wanted it to be like it'd always been," he gasped, his breaths between words borderlining a wheeze.

It was almost comical how quickly Bucky softened. He never could stay angry with Steve for long. 

He was quick to pull Steve back from the edge of an asthma attack with soothing words and deep breaths, just like always. When the boy had stopped choking for breath, Bucky gave him a serious look. "It'll be just like always," he promised. "And she'll get through it. There ain't no force strong enough to take down Sarah Rogers."

Steve nodded, his small smile grateful and relieved. "Okay."

"You still shoulda told me," Bucky grumbled after a minute of a comfortable silence in which the pair sat side-by-side, muttering under his breath. He never was one to let things go.

Steve laughed, knowing - of course - his friend wasn't angry anymore, not really, and shoved at Bucky's shoulder, earning a wide grin from the brunet.

"Shut it, drama queen. I'm tellin' ya now."

And when Sarah Rogers died three weeks later, on February 10th of 1934, Bucky went to the town hall just minutes after he'd heard the news and asked to have his birthday moved back a month, to the 10th of March. The man working had been more than a bit confused, but had complied to Bucky's request all the same, legally making him a whole month younger.

He never came out and told Steve why, but he knew. 

(Of course he knew.)

Bucky wouldn't ever make his best friend even think about celebrating on the day he'd lost his Ma.

 

*****

 

 _Daybreak_.

This memory is a good one.

He and Steve had been celebrating the latter's twentieth birthday. They'd taken a few bottles of beer Bucky had found (he'd stolen them from a coworker down at the docks, though he would never admit it to Steve), a ratty old blanket, and a loaf of day-old bread up the fire escape and to the roof of their tenement building to celebrate.

They'd spent the entire night up there, watching the fireworks, joking and laughing as they dangled their feet off the side of the building.

Without realizing it, they'd fallen asleep on the roof at some point in the night, both curled up under that same tiny blanket, Steve's head pillowed on Bucky's shoulder, Bucky's arm tucked neatly behind his own head and his other curled around Steve's waist.

They woke up early the next morning, with the sun.

It shined brightly over the Long Island Sound as it rose steadily, creating a masterpiece of color streaking across the sky, more beautiful than any Fourth of July firework.

"God, Buck," Steve had whispered as watched new colors appear, pinks and oranges and reds, still lying against the other man, curled tightly against his larger frame for warmth. "Ain't it the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?"

He would paint that sunrise for months to come, each more beautiful than the last. He always complained that it wasn't quite right, though, that he knew he could do better. Bucky didn't doubt it - even if they couldn't afford his lessons anymore, Steve's talent as an artist grew with each brushstroke, with each stray line of graphite on paper.

Still, he would carefully smooth out each piece Steve crumpled up and tossed at his head, pressing it flat in an old book on his small desk, just as he did with each precious piece Steve gave to him. He knew Steve was gonna be famous someday, he just knew it. 

He'd be up there with the best: da Vinci, van Gogh, Monet, Rogers.

Right where he should be.

Those pieces are still there now, pressed in an old book on a tiny desk. Waiting for an owner who will never come, painted by an artist who will never be known.

But in that moment, Bucky had smiled down at Steve. 

"The most beautiful thing I've ever seen," he'd echoed in agreement.

He was lying through his teeth.

(The most beautiful thing he'd ever seen wasn't the sky, even when it was lit up with this many colors. By far, the most beautiful thing was blond hair and blue eyes and skinny, spindly arms stretching up toward the summer sky.)

 

*****

 

 _Furnace_.

The thing that differentiates this word from the others is that it is not truly about him.

Instead, it tells the story of his arm, crafted of metals and technologies far ahead of its time.

And maybe it is his story, just as the arm has become a part of him. It took only a few weeks for Bucky Barnes to become used to the weapon protruding from his body, fused to his spine and wired into his very soul, it seems. By the time the first year with the arm had passed, he was using it like it had been a part of him all his life, like he'd been born half man, half monster of metal.

The arm was forged in fires hotter than the heart of a dying star, melted and shaped and re-melted in a furnace using technologies so far into the future they seemed to be from another world, another galaxy. (The idea wasn't as far from the truth as it seemed.)

As that otherworldly furnace's fires burned, a weapon unlike any other was created. With an arm of vibranium alloy built directly into its core, the Winter Soldier was an assassin more deadly than any other in history, HYDRA's personal plaything to do whatever they pleased with.

Without the arm, it's likely the Asset would be no more useful than any other of HYDRA's toys, despite his deadly aim and nearly unwavering loyalty.

(So, maybe, it was more than just an arm that was created in that furnace. 

Maybe it was the weapon as a whole, something more monster than man. Maybe the Winter Soldier wasn't just created through years of brainwashing and wiping and torture, but by the burning of a flame hotter than anything ever before it as well.)

 

*****

 

 _Nine_.

Bucky almost wanted to smile when they said that one. 

It was just as harsh and cruel as every other word they spoke, just like Russian always was:  _девять_.

The memory was a sharp one, too, but good all the same. The best, maybe. The most important, at the very least.

He can still remember it vividly, even after all this time. The day was sunshiny and bright, too beautiful to sit inside and read like his Ma begged him to. When you're nine years old and the sun is out, it seems impossible to stay in.

He'd been playing in the street with a few other neighborhood kids, just tossing a ball around, when a fight broke out between some of the older boys. It was nothing unusual, nothing Bucky hadn't seen before, but -

This didn't look like your average friendly scuffle.

The group was crowded around the skinniest boy Bucky'd ever seen, all skin and bones and elbows and knees. He was doing his best to hold his own - and he was doing a damned good job, Bucky might add - but he was just so _tiny_.

Before he could even think about it, Bucky was jogging his way over.

"Hey!" He shouted, puffing out his chest the slightest bit and standing up straighter to make himself look bigger. (He wasn't scared. He wasn't. If this gangly, bloody little mess in front of him wasn't scared of them, neither was Bucky.)

A few punches thrown, maybe a _Go pick on someone your own size!_ , and they were gone.

Once the group disappeared around a corner, Bucky turned to the other boy and held out a hand, just the way his Ma had taught him. "I'm Bucky!" He announced, his grin crooked and his eyes warm.

The smaller boy didn't hold out his own hand to shake, didn't smile back. He eyed Bucky warily as he swiped at the blood trickling from his nose, like he thought the boy had driven all the others away just so he could have a turn beating on him all on his own.

"I didn't need your help," he muttered moments later, once he'd determined the larger boy wasn't a threat.

Bucky's eyes sparkled in amusement. "Ya sure about that?"

Steve's nod was swift as he crossed his arms squarely, staring up at him with a determined set to his face. "I had 'em on the ropes."

(And, really, that was all it took. Bucky'd been infatuated with the stubborn kid he'd found in an alleyway purely by chance ever since.)

 

*****

 

 _Benign_.

Another word that does not bring him to a specific time or place. Nor is it his future, symbolizing the man - only he isn't a man, not anymore, he hasn't been for a long time - that he will become. 

This word is his past. It's the man he used to be, the man he will never be again.

It's defined in Oxford's dictionary as _"gentle and kind; not harmful in effect."_

And, oh, Bucky Barnes was the kindest of them all, once. If it were up to him, he would never hurt a fly. (Unless, of course, that fly was threatening Steve Rogers. All hell would break loose if his dear friend was ever in danger.)

He was the type of man to refuse to enlist for a war waging across oceans, to decide his country would be just fine without his help because he would not kill another, he would not take a life, no matter their sins or his own beliefs. 

(Only God himself could take life from another living thing, and that's the way Bucky believed it should always be.)

When he was dragged in, though, kicking and screaming as many were, he sacrificed himself to protect his team. And when his beloved Rogers came to him with a proposition, a new team that needed someone as good with a gun as he (and, oh, isn't that ironic?), he didn't even have to think about it. He would do anything to keep his best friend safe.

But benign is no longer a word to describe James Buchanan Barnes, nor is James a name to describe the Soldier.

He is no longer gentle - the Soldier is known to get in and get out fast, no matter the casualties. He will be as rough as need be, never one to take the time to grant a merciful death. 

He is no longer kind - he will kill any witness necessary, man, woman, or child. When given an oh-so-rare opportunity for free time, he will have his way with whoever he sees fit. (Or even just sees first, it's quite possible: man, woman, or child. He is not a good man, after all, despite what he used to be.)

And, well - the Soldier was created for the sole purpose of wreaking havoc, of bringing harm to those his handlers wish to see put in his or her place. (No matter if that place is six feet underground.)

Bucky Barnes was once a kind and gentle man, yes. But just as he is no longer benign, he is no longer Bucky Barnes.

 

*****

 

 _Homecoming_.

This isn't a memory so much as a dream.

The moment Bucky'd received his letter, sent special and urgent from President Roosevelt himself. At least, that's what the paper claimed.

_James Buchanan Barnes_

_Greetings:_

_Having submitted yourself to a local board composed of your neighbors for the purpose of determining your availability for training and service in the land or naval forces of the United States, you are hereby notified that you have now been selected for training and service therein_.

It went on to give him the time and place for his required meeting, from where he'd be shipped off to training in London soon after. The letter, his draft - because he hadn't really applied like he'd told Steve, not at all - had easily been the worst he'd ever received. (And, yes, he was including the telegram his mother had gotten, apologizing for the loss of her beloved husband. At least that hadn't come as a surprise.)

It wasn't that he was scared to go overseas, or scared that he might make the ultimate sacrifice for his country.

Those thoughts didn't bother him.

It was the idea of leaving Steve alone in New York, barely scraping together enough for his medicine or for a stale loaf of bread every once in a while.

(It was also the idea of what he might have to do there, what he might have to take - but none of those thoughts mattered when Steve would be hungry and alone.)

Bucky knew that if he left his friend behind, he'd be in danger - probably more than Bucky himself would be in, honestly.

When he'd received the draft, he'd gone to selective services almost immediately. (He'd been in a little bit of shock when he'd first opened the letter. It took him a good hour or two to peel himself off the kitchen floor where he'd sunk to his knees, horrified.) 

He'd begged with them, pleaded with them, to let him out of it.

"You don't get it," he'd explained brokenly. "I need to stay here, to take care of Stevie. He'll die without me there. He needs me."

He didn't tell them that he needed Steve just as much - if not more.

It wouldn't've made a difference either way. With sorry eyes, they'd simply told him to say his goodbyes and report to lineup the following week.

But none of that was what the word brought - no, that was what brought on the dream, the same one the word had brought, the same one he'd been having since he'd ripped open the letter.

The idea of finally coming home, after the war had been won. Coming home to Steve, who was healthy and happy and _safe,_ waiting at the train station with all the other guys' dames. Because Steve was the closest Bucky'd ever gotten to a girl, a real one who'd stay longer than a night or two. 

He was his past, his present, his future. His everything.

The dream (but it was more than just a dream, it occupied his every waking moment as well as his sleep, all through training and the war and Zola and the rest) was always the same. 

Bucky would spend the whole ride home jittery and anxious, bouncing his knee up and down as he glanced from the window to his slowly ticking watch and back again. Finally, finally, the train would screech into the station and he'd rush off with all the others, all just as excited as he to see their loved ones again.

He'd look and look and look, searching through waves upon waves of people who couldn't have mattered less in that moment. He just needed to find him. And then -

And then.

His eyes would meet that familiar, brilliant blue that was more of a home than the whole of Brooklyn itself could ever be.

Bony elbows would push their way through the crowd, overwhelming and overbearing and too much, as Bucky shoved through from the opposite side.

They'd meet somewhere in the middle, surrounded by cries of joy and the shrieks of children's laughs. Bucky would stop just a foot or two from his very best friend, drinking in the sight of him and not saying a word. (Steve would do the exact same.)

Finally, the blond would say something stupid, something like: "You came back," his eyes red-rimmed and shining with pure joy.

"'Course I did, punk," Bucky would reply easily, his crooked grin warm and familiar. "I wasn't gonna leave my best guy behind."

If Bucky's eyes were a little wet as Steve coughed out a laugh, well, neither of them would say a word about it.

"C'mere," he'd mutter fondly not moments later, an arm outstretched toward the smaller man. Steve would step closer - much too slowly - and Bucky would drag him in, tight against his chest as he buried his face in that straw-yellow hair that always seemed to smell of apples, even if it hadn't been washed with anything more than a measly bar of soap in months.

They'd clutch to each other until Steve would choke out "Can't breathe, Buck," words muffled against the other man's chest. Bucky would loosen his grip but keep his face tucked tightly away, unable to let go.

"Missed you, Stevie," he'd whisper, making sure not to be too quiet, so as not to be missed by Steve's bad ear, the one that had gotten infected when he was a kid and had never really healed right.

"I know, Buck," Steve would sigh as he rubbed the man's back, shaking lightly enough that they could both pretend not to have noticed it. "But you're home now. I'm here."

The image always ends there, bathed in happiness and in colors bright as the paints Bucky always tried to save up enough for, the ones Steve would eye as the walked side by side through the city.

And even if it never really happened, it's vivid enough to be counted as a memory. Sometimes, on early mornings with the Commandoes in some unknown, icy part of Europe, Bucky could even pretend it _had_ really happened.

That he'd really gone home after the war - that the war had ever really ended.

 

*****

 

 _One_.

Since the day they'd met, all bloodied knuckles and dirty, worn-down shoes with holes in their soles and thick Brooklyn accents, Bucky and Steve had been inseparable.

Not once in all their years before the war could either boy call himself truly alone. 

Hot days would be spent out under the sun, skinny shoulders reddening under its hot rays as a smattering of freckles appeared across each boy's nose and their hair lightened with the summer. 

Evenings were spent indoors, alternating between the kitchens of Winifred and Sarah - whoever's cupboards were least bare would take their turn to feed the two.

Nights when the heat of the city just couldn't seem to lift were for sleepovers out under the stars, a sheet wrapped around a mattress dragged out to the fire escape and nothing more.

In winters, most days brought a new sickness for Steve along with the snow. Bucky had long since given up snowball fights with the other boys his age to spend his afternoons reading at his friend's bedside. When Steve was awake, he would often read aloud, delighting in being able to share adventures with the boy even when he was unable to leave his room, or - on the really bad days - to even move too much.

The nights when the winter's chill grew bone-deep, the nights Steve couldn't stop shaking no matter how much hot tea he drank or how many blankets were placed on his frail body (the nights that had even Sarah, always the optimist, convinced her boy wouldn't make it to the morning) - those were the nights Bucky crawled in beside his friend, ignoring the woman's reminders that he, too could get sick. 

He wrapped himself tightly around Steve's tiny frame. 

Maybe, he thought, if he could hold Steve just close enough, he'd be able to stop his awful shivering.

And though he often shook till morning, Steve Rogers always woke up.

So, no, neither boy could ever say they were really alone, not when they had a friend as close as one another.

They were with each other until the end of the line, they promised. Always together, always the pair.

A duo created by God himself, put down on this Earth for some unknown reason.

To protect, maybe. That's what Steve often said. (Bucky could never be sure if he meant they were there to protect each other, or the rest of the world.)

Whatever the reason was, they were not people made to be alone. They were a match for the ages, two men destined to find each other as children and never part.

Bucky Barnes was never meant to be separated from his soulmate (and that's what Steve was, really, there had never been any better use for the word than to describe the pair).

He was never meant to be just the one. 

 

*****

 

 _Freight car_.

Probably the most painful of all the memories, of all the words, it's fitting that these ones - _грузовой вагон_  - are the last.

After all, it was on that train car that the very last piece of Bucky's life was ripped away.

He'd never thought about how much a single blast from a gun could ruin his life. (At least, a blast aimed at him. One aimed at Steve would be a whole other story.)

But it was that one singular blast that blew him from the train, tossed him right out into the wind like it was nothing at all. By the time Bucky'd even realized what had happened, he was dangling out over the open sky with nothing more than a bar to hold him up.

"Bucky!"

He was slipping, slipping, slipping -

"Hang on!"

Steve was inching his way out toward him, and it was wrong, so wrong. Steve was putting himself in danger, and trying to save Bucky was not nearly a good enough excuse for that. But there's too much wind, he can't tell the idiot to get back inside, he'll be _fine,_  just like always, and then he's reaching out.

"Grab my hand!"

It's pure adrenaline keeping Bucky's strength up enough to prevent him from slipping right into the valley below as he stretches with one hand toward Steve, as far as he can. He's only inches away, but it might as well be miles.

Because right then, the bar that holds his life - two lives intertwined, really - in the balance snaps from the side of the train.

And with nothing more than a scream, Bucky Barnes is as good as dead.

 

*****

 

Soldier?

_Готов отвечать._

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this sitting around for a while bc i wasn't sure how i felt about it, but i just found it & figured id post it. i don't love it & some of it makes no sense - ex. me mentioning bucky's dad dying in ww1 but then mentioning little siblings which isn't really possible, but I'm going with it. let me know if something really bothers you or is totally wrong and I'll see what I can do.
> 
> the draft letter is the actual draft letter used for ww2 (i think / hope).
> 
> the last line is russian for "ready to comply" (at least thats what google translate said), but i wasn't sure how to link a translation. if anyone could help me out with that, it would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> all errors are my own & i own nothing.
> 
> hope you enjoyed!! :)
> 
>  
> 
> **
> 
> ALSO this fic is now available in russian at https://ficbook.net/readfic/5937885 after being translated by the wonderful RecklessMind!!


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